Home Chef moving HQ to Wrigley Building

Meal-kit delivery service Home Chef is moving its headquarters to the Wrigley Building, in a space five times larger than its current Chicago office.

Home Chef will take 29,095 square feet in the landmark at 400-410 N. Michigan Ave., the company said.

The move comes amid rapid growth by Home Chef, which ships fresh ingredients and meal recipes to customers' homes.

It said it is now delivering almost 2.5 million meals a month, up from 1.5 million per month when the company raised a $40 million investment last September from private-equity firm L Catterton Partners.

"It's a reflection of the meal-kit industry continuing to grow," Home Chef founder and CEO Pat Vihtelic said of the need for a larger headquarters. "We're outpacing the meal-kit industry, but others are also growing."

The firm will lease the entire 14th floor, where the north and south towers are connected by an elevated walkway. Home Chef will complete a move next week from 5,885 square feet at 225 W. Ohio St. in River North to the new space, which can accommodate 150 to 200 people, Vihtelic said.

He said the company has about 800 full-time office and distribution center workers, including about 400 in the Chicago area but declined to say how many people work in the headquarters. Distribution centers are along O'Hare International Airport and near Los Angeles and Atlanta.

Vihtelic declined to provide revenue figures or say how many employees Home Chef expects to add in 2017.

Home Chef is subleasing the space from advertising delivery firm Extreme Reach, according to Bradford Allen Realty Services brokers John Skalla and Craig Nadborne, who represented Home Chef. Extreme Reach was represented by John Ziesmer and Kevin Moore of Avison Young.

Talent Partners signed a lease for the Wrigley Building space in 2014 but was acquired by Needham, Mass.-based Extreme Reach in 2015. Extreme Reach already had a Chicago office, at 111 W. Jackson Blvd., so it sought a tenant to take over the furnished space in the Wrigley Building.